After my iPhone was stolen, I won't forget to pack my 'street smarts' again

This is something of a cautionary tale, so feel free to scribble notes in the margins of the print edition or screen-grab the bits you might find useful.

A recent trip to London ended in personal disaster when the iPhone I was using to guide myself back to my hotel was snatched from my hands on a busy street. Over the next 36 hours – until I was able to cancel my debit and credit cards – the thief somehow managed to access accounts and services I thought were secure.

In total, almost Dh70,000 was taken by draining my current account – goodbye rent money – to go shopping for jewellery and sportswear, plus visits to supermarkets Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s. McDonald’s, Superdrug and Argos were also part of this credit-card spree, undertaken in some part by the thief using my Uber account to get around.

There is also page after page after page, screen after screen, of dozens of cash withdrawals – £100 (Dh465) and £200 at a time. Again and again.

Do people feel safe in London?

01:06

Once my current account was emptied, and unbeknownst to me, more than £2,000 of this illegal spending was put on hold by the bank because of insufficient funds – and then cleared when the money I borrowed to cover the rent (see above) was deposited.

By accident or design, the thief screen-grabbed his spending, an image that was uploaded to the cloud so I could view it with a mixture of horror, dismay and futility on my other devices.

All this came to light many days after the iPhone was stolen when I returned to Dubai, bought a new SIM card and reset my Apple Account passcode – something he was able to breach with seeming ease.

Yes, I made mistakes. In the blind panic and confused thinking over a lost phone, and without the ability to contact anyone by any means, I failed to make blocking the cards a priority.

I also laboured under the misapprehension that my accounts were safely secure in my Apple Wallet, protected by FaceID and impenetrable to anyone without my biometrics.

In total, almost Dh70,000 was taken by draining my current account – goodbye rent money – to go shopping for jewellery and sportswear

A visit to the Apple Store in Regent Street – me in the middle of a persistent flop-sweat – was time wasted: I couldn’t remember my Apple login (the password was on my phone); I couldn’t remember my email login (the password was on my phone) and any recovery one-time passcode was sent by SMS to a phone I no longer possessed.

For the sake of my mental health, I am not pondering the inevitable “what ifs” – what if I hadn’t been walking alone, what if I’d travelled with my iPad to be able to block and wipe the iPhone, what if I’d insisted on using the hotel’s phone to contact the bank.

After initial dealings with the bank and credit card companies, I am not hopeful of seeing any of my money again. For one thing, every challenge I make to a credit card transaction costs me Dh100 – guilty until proven innocent, it would seem. There are more than 68 fraudulent transactions on one card and the initial 10 I disputed were rejected – a further loss to me of Dh1,000.

So, I am moving on. I refuse to be a victim, I refuse to let this event cast a shadow, despite the lingering dark thoughts. I am not going to spend weeks and months doing battle with call centre workers, being passed from pillar to post and back again. This is not going to become my life.

I have taken comfort in the help and support I’ve received from friends and family – they have been brilliant. What I don’t take comfort in is the numbers.

A report published in The Guardian two days after my phone was stolen contained details and case studies I found discomfortingly familiar. According to the report, there were 58,000 mobile phone thefts in London last year. Just dwell on that number: 58,000. That’s almost 160 a day.

The extent to which our phones and our lives are inextricably linked is not a good thing. The loss of one disproportionately impacts the other. EPA

I feel for every one of those souls. So here are some of the lessons I’ve learnt.

The extent to which our phones and our lives are inextricably linked is not a good thing. The loss of one disproportionately affects the other. I was isolated in a way I would not inflict on my worst enemy.

Not everywhere is as safe as the UAE. After almost 20 years of living in a relatively crime-free paradise, I have evidently lost my “street smarts”.

Do not assume anything on your phone is beyond the reach of thieves and hackers. They breached my security – they can breach yours. They’re cunning and resourceful.

Have different passcodes for your phone and your financial apps – I believe, in my case, one was somehow used to get past the other.

According to a report in 'The Guardian', there were 58,000 mobile phone thefts in London last year. EPA

Keep important passcodes and access information available with a trusted other. My friends and loved ones in the Emirates were frustrated by their inability to help me in the UK.

Add spending limits to credit and debit cards, and add restricted countries where your cards are not allowed to be used, if your bank allows it.

Don’t assume your travel insurance will help. Mine didn’t.

And do not think fraudulent spending on a credit card is automatically protected, as so many of us do. I was told that because the spending happened using Apple Pay it was “considered secure” and therefore not the bank’s responsibility.

I will, however, continue to fight for the return of the money taken from my current account – how that much money, in repeat amounts, was not considered “suspicious activity” is frankly beyond my understanding.

Travel safely.